Presbyter or Elder sufficiently declares. However, if a young Man was endowed with extraordinary Gifts and Talents, his Age was dispensed with in respect both to the Sacerdotal and Episcopal Dignity. Thus was _Aurelius_, though young in Years, raised, in regard of his great Merit, to the Rank of a Presbyter, as we read in St. _Cyprian_[609]; and the Bishop of _Magnesia_, in St. _Ignatius_’s Time, was, it seems, but a young Man, since _Ignatius_, in his Letter to the _Magnesians_, exhorts them _not to despise their Bishop’s Age, but to yield him all due Respect and Reverence_[610]. These were the Qualifications requisite in a Candidate for the Ministry: if he was recommended by them (for no other Recommendation could avail him), he was admitted to holy Orders; if not, he was rejected as unfit for the sacred Function. The Person ordained was at Liberty to serve the Church where he had received his Orders, or any other where his Assistance might be wanted; for he was not ordained Minister of any particular Church, but of the Church universal. [Sidenote: _The Institution and Office of Deacons._] In the Third and last Degree were the Deacons, whose original Institution was to _serve Tables_, as we read in the _Acts_[611]; that is, to inspect the Poor, and relieve them by a proper Distribution of the Offerings made by the Faithful, which were committed to their Charge, though they could not dispose of them without the Bishop’s Knowlege[612]. They were ordained by the Imposition of Hands[613], and therefore deemed Ministers of the Altar, as well as Dispensers of Alms; and with a great deal of Reason, for they assisted the Bishops or Presbyters in administring the Eucharist, by delivering the Elements to the Communicants[614]; they carried the Eucharist to such as had not been able to assist with the rest at Divine Service[615]; they preached, and, in the Absence of the Bishop and Presbyters, conferred the Sacrament of Baptism[616]. [Sidenote: _Their Number._] The Presbyters of a Church were not confined to a set Number; but the Deacons were, no Church having more than Seven in the primitive Times, that being the original Number instituted by the Apostles. Thus the Church of _Rome_ had but Seven in the Times of Pope _Cornelius_[617], and Pope _Sixtus_ II[618], the Church of _Saragosa_ the same Number in the Time of _Vincentius_, who flourished under _Dioclesian_[619]. The Fourteenth Canon of the Council of _Neocæsarea_, or the Fifteenth, according to the _Greek_, forbids this Number to be inlarged, even in the greatest and most populous Cities[620]; whence St. _Jerom_ writes, that great Respect was paid to the Deacons, because they were few in Number[621]. [Sidenote: _Subdeacons_, _Acolytes_, _Readers_,3] &c.]